Fixed an issue that caused the engineer to be the source of boons and conditions for several mech skills, instead of the mech itself.

[Jalad Lantana.3027]

So anyone who fully grasps all the ins and outs of engineer with Mech, what is the net result of this bit from the balance preview for Engineer.

 

My reading is this means some boons that were generated by the Mech, originated on the engineer, meaning if the Mech was half way across them map, the  engineer got the boons.

With this change, with the Mech often out of boon range of the engineer, the engineer will getting the benefit of fewer boons. 

 

Since engineer and pet classes in general have very little control over their pets movement and proximity, this is a looks to be a major nerf.

 

What do you think, major, minor, a wash somehow, what?

[Alcatraznc.3869]

This is mainly targetted at HAM and to be fair, since you are providing boons and not actively trying to DPS, keeping an eye on your own mech should be one of your task. But as a boon provider chances are you are going to be running knukle arms and your mech is going to be at melee range of the boss just like your team mate so it should not be too hard to check.

 

IMO the only issue is going to be the boon duration of the mech not being what it is supposed to be as well as mechanical genius messing with you.

 

[Jerus.4350]

So, first of all, this is not a bug fix, this is a design change.  Originally Boon and Condi inheritance traits used the players stats instead of the Mechs making the inheritance irrelevant for those stats.  This was important because otherwise +% Boon/Condi Duration Runes/Sigils/Traits would not affect the Mech's stats (nor Focusing Crystal/Maintenance Oil).  This is why this change is coming with further trait inheritances and a bonus to the Concentration inheritance. 

 

What does this all mean?  Well, it means Mechanical Genius will actually affect Condi and Boon Mech builds, this is why it was done (as well as make it consistent with other pets).  In the stream they mentioned they are aware this is a nerf and have tried to compensate for that and will do so further if needed.

For HAM this means if you're say baiting the Red Circles on HT Strike then the Alacrity your Mech is pumping out will be a lower duration while you're doing that mechanic.  But, with the change to 150% inheritance while the Mech has MG your Mech will still be capped on boon duration (actually better than before but you were already capped anyways so doesn't matter).

For Cele HAM it's a nerf to boon duration, 85% ->63%, this is big because it makes it so your F3 is no longer a permanent upkeep (10 stacks of might + Fury).

For pAlac Mech this needs to be explored more.  It basically comes down to a DPS vs Might preference.  As is it's upkeeping ~23 stacks of might.  With this change you will be able to drop your boon duration to ~35% and still upkeep Alacrity.  But, dropping boon duration will greatly affect your might upkeep.  Dropping to 35% might will make Blunderbuss only 5 Stacks of might (with spikes of 10) as well as dropping your Mech's might generation from up to 15 stacks from Autos to 13.  With the Concentration inheritance the F3 also becomes awfully close to full uptime (82% BD when 85%+ is needed) which is nice.  So we'll see how much extra damage can be squeezed out of pAlac Mech and if it's worth dropping ~7-10 might stacks for it. 

cAlac Mech is going to be interesting.  Might upkeep won't really be there which is unfortunate.  It relied on Runes for that.  Instead as a DPS option it might be not bad.  Currently it runs full Ritualist + Toxic Oil, with this change just Ritualists will put the Mech at 63% BD and well over the necessary level for Alacrity upkeep.  And, it will give up to 16 stacks of might with spikes of another 10 from the F3 but not full upkeep.

 

We will also see a ~1k DPS increase to Condi and Boon Mech DPS thanks to a bug fix on the Melee Autos.

[ThunderX.6591]

So, even after mecha was "deleted" from the dps meter (i don't consider the "piano CONDI build as weaver" a viable build seeing Holo and even Scrapper at the same level as power build), they literally nerfed mecha class even more?

So, now, as a NO HAM build alac mecha power i am literally useless? (i normally use Rifle, so aren't in meele much of the time and use meele mecha cause well, the party is normally all meele around the boss)

Ok we will need to wait and see how the change work in "real game", but really, could we stop with the "random nerf every patch" just because the class is the Mecha? (they even nerfed the robot AOE of the autoattack from 240 to 130 now..........)

Edited February 5, 2023 by ThunderX.6591

[Coolster.2536]

On 2/4/2023 at 7:40 AM, Jalad Lantana.3027 said:

My reading is this means some boons that were generated by the Mech, originated on the engineer, meaning if the Mech was half way across them map, the  engineer got the boons.

With this change, with the Mech often out of boon range of the engineer, the engineer will getting the benefit of fewer boons.

You misunderstood. Boons from Mech abilities always originated from the Mech. If the Player was off in Narnia, they wouldn't get the Boons from the Mech, but the Mech's Boons used the Player's Boon Duration instead of the Mech's. Same for Conditions applied by the Mech's abilities: they used the Player's Condition Damage and Duration.The change is to make it so the Mech is using it's own Concentration/Condition Damage/Expertise for Boons/Conditions. This also means that if the Player is out of Range of the Mech, the boons applied will have shorter duration and Conditions applied will do less damage over a shorter duration.

9 hours ago, ThunderX.6591 said:

they even nerfed the robot AOE of the autoattack from 240 to 130 now..........

I think this will end up being a buff rather than a nerf (in PvE, at least. Probably a nerf in PvP/WvW tho...). Because of how big the Auto Attack range is, there are situations where the Mech can hit the target, but be just outside of Boon/Mechanical Genius range and end up whiffing some of it's abilities. The smaller range should cut down on the amount of those types of situations.